Teach people how to fish...

Photo from dimnikolov's photostream

Do you remember Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs from back in your school days? Maslow drew a pyramid, with human needs stacked according to their importance to us. The lower 4 are considered deficit needs... meaning we actively seek them out when we are deficit (lacking) in them. The needs are stacked in order of importance to us, with the lowest layer being absolutely primary. Even within layers, there is an order of importance: If you cannot breathe, you surely are not concerned about food and shelter at that precise moment.

The top level is actually different, it's things/traits we'd like to have in order to really feel fulfilled in our lives. Things like Truth, Goodness, Morality, Meaningfulness, Creativity and quite a few more that capture the essence of self-actualization.

Do you think in this desperate economic downturn that the starving, unemployed and/or homeless folks are thinking about those things at the top of the pyramid?

My bet is they are thinking about food and shelter (the basics to survive) which is the bottom, foundation level in Maslow's chart. I'm thinking that many folks now have nothing left but frustration, nothing else to lose, and even food and shelter seem elusive to them. Time bombs ticking...

If they cannot get those basic needs legitimately (like they could with the ex-paycheck from the company that closed its domestic doors and moved manufacturing overseas for more profit), they will ultimately resort to whatever means is at hand, including violence or unlawfulness of some sort if that's all that's available. Unlawfulness might be as benign as a mother shoplifting a can of Spaghetti-O's to feed a starving kid because she can't get food stamps, but it could be a purse-snatcher looking for a few bucks for groceries (or drugs or alcoholic beverages), or worse yet, home invasion.

Do you think their frustration or anger doesn't build when they hear of bonuses in the millions of dollars being paid to the people perhaps responsible for their dire straights? And to rub salt in the wounds, those bonuses are often paid with federal bailout money the now-unemployed people paid into for years as taxes, and their children (if they live long enough) will have to repay?

To be sure, there are always freeloaders who think the world owes them something for nothing. I'm not talking about them because I have no clue as to why some people are like that.

And I'm not even talking about those who would rather get food stamps and cry 'poor me' than have a job that pays minimum wages. I see those people in my small town all the time. A friend's daughter is out of work, has been for over 2 years. She gets free housing and food stamps because she has 2 dependent and "fatherless" children. She has no real incentive to get a job because she knows the system will take care of her as long as she has dependent children, but she also has no need to resort to violence because she has food and shelter.

I do not believe being on the dole is a Right. At the same time, I do think most of us feel some obligation to help others in an emergency if we are able, for instance victims of tornado, or hurricane devastation, and floods. That's not the same thing as a 'required' handout or someone being on the dole.

I believe that we owe it to ourselves and our children's children to clean up this mess, somehow, someway. And truthfully, I have absolutely NO earthly idea how we can do that. Like many people, I am never more than a few days or weeks away from being homeless and hungry myself. Our 'system' takes care of the children, but unfortunately not the elderly.

There must be a way of creating some opportunity for "Joe and Jane Average" to survive (which probably won't include cable and a 60 inch HDTV); and if they need some help UP, then we help. By 'we' I do not mean the federal government. I mean me... and you. Local, community involvement. Maybe even just 'on your street, or on your block' involvement.

Some of our biggest banks are sitting on large profits from the bailouts (profits made by using our tax money) but they won't lend it if you don't have both a job and excellent credit. Even then, they might not lend it. But look at it this way: who really needs debt anyway, except for maybe a very large purchase like a home? Who convinced us anyway that more is better, that we aren't 'worthy' unless we have a McMansion and a new car every 2-4 years?

It's time to stop favoring the Good Ole Million Dollar Boy Network. It's time to get lobbyists out of the pockets of our legislators and out of our Laws.

Time to start teaching people how to fish... somehow, someway.

It's Time for some Stone Soup

Photo by halseike

Stone Soup is an old folk story in which hungry strangers (or sometimes told as weary soldiers returning home) persuade local people of a town to share food. It is usually the story of when three soldiers come across a town looking for a meal and a place to sleep. The town doesn’t have much and hides their food, and tell the soldiers tales of why they have no food and no extra beds. The soldiers say they will make Stone Soup to eat if they could just borrow a pot and ladle.The villagers provide them and the soldiers put in three large stones and start cooking... and so the story goes on...

I think it's high time we made some Stone Soup in our neighborhoods, don't you? How about a computer-printed invitation to all those neighbors you may not know, with the story printed on the invitation?

STONE SOUP, An Old Tale Retold
Text by Marcia Brown
Three soldiers trudged down a road in a strange country. They were on their way home from the wars. Besides being tired, they were hungry. In fact, they had eaten nothing for two days.

"How I would like a good dinner tonight,” said the first. “And a bed to sleep in,” said the second.
“But all that is impossible,” said the third. “We must march on.”
On they marched. Suddenly, ahead of them they saw the lights of a village.
“Maybe we’ll find a bite to eat there,” said the first.
“And a loft to sleep in,” said the second.
“No harm in asking,” said the third.
Now the peasants of that place feared strangers. When they heard that three soldiers were coming down the road, they talked among themselves.

---

“Here come three soldiers. Soldiers are always hungry. But we have little enough for ourselves.” And they hurried to hide their food. They pushed the sacks of barley under the hay in the lofts. They lowered buckets of milk down the wells.
They spread old quilts over the carrot bins. They hid their cabbages and potatoes under the beds. They hung their meat in the cellars.
They hid all they had to eat. Then – they waited.

---

The soldiers stopped first at the house of Paul and Francoise. “Good evening to you,” they said. “Could you spare a bit of food for three hungry soldiers?”
“We have had no food for ourselves for three days,” said Paul. Francoise made a sad face. “It has been a poor harvest.”
The three soldiers went on the house of Albert and Louise.
“Could you spare a bit of food? And have you some corner where we could sleep for the night?”
“Oh no,” said Albert. “We gave all we could spare to soldiers who came before you.”
“Our beds are full,” said Louise.

---

At Vincent and Marie’s the answer was the same.  It had been a poor harvest and all the grain must be kept for seed. So it went all through the village. Not a peasant had any food to give away. They all had good reasons. One family had use the grain for feed. Another had an old sick father to care for. All had too many mouths to fill.

---

The villagers stood in the street and sighed. The looked as hungry as they could. The three soldiers talked together.
Then the first soldier called out, “Good people!” The peasants drew near.
“We are three hungry soldiers in a strange land. We have asked you for food and you have no food. Well then, we’ll have to make stone soup.”
The peasants stared.
Stone soup? That would be something to know about.

---

“First, we’ll need a large iron pot,” the soldiers said. The peasants brought the largest pot they could find. How else to cook enough?
“That's none too large,” said the soldiers. “But it will do. And now, water to fill it and a fire to heat it.”

---

It took many buckets of water to fill the pot. A fire was built on the village square and the pot was set to boil. “And now,  if you please, three round, smooth stones.”
Those were easy enough to find.
The peasants’ eyes grew round as they watched the soldiers drop the stones into the pot.

---

“Any soup needs salt and pepper,” said the soldiers, as they began to stir. Children ran to fetch salt and pepper.
“Stones like these generally make good soup. But oh, if there were carrots, it would be much better.”
“Why, I think I have a carrot or two,” said Francoise, and off she ran.
She came back with her apron fill of carrots from the bin beneath the red quilt.

---

“A good stone soup should have cabbage,” said the soldiers as they sliced the carrots into the pot. “But no use asking for what you don't have.” “I think I could find a cabbage somewhere,” said Marie and she hurried home. Back she came with three cabbages from the cupboard under the bed.

---

“If we only had a bit of beef and a few potatoes, this soup would be good enough for a rich man's table” The peasants thought that over. They remembered their potatoes and the sides of beef hanging in the cellars. They ran to fetch them.
A rich man's soup – and all from a few stones. It seemed like magic!

---

“Ah,” sighed the soldiers as they stirred in the beef and potatoes, “if we only had a little barley and a cup of milk! This would would be fit for the king himself. Indeed he asked for just such a soup when last he dined with us.” The peasants looked at each other. The soldiers had entertained the king! Well!
“But – no use asking for what you don’t have,” the soldiers sighed.
The peasants brought their barley from the lofts, they brought their milk from the wells. The soldiers stirred the barley and milk into the steaming broth while the peasants stared.

---

At last the soup was ready. “All of you shall taste,” the soldiers said. “But first a table must be set.”
Great tables were placed in the square. And all around were lighted torches.
Such a soup! How good it smelled! Truly fit for a king.
But then the peasants asked themselves, “Would not such a soup require bread – and a roast – and cider?” Soon a banquet was spread and everyone sat down to eat.
Never had there been such a feast. Never had the peasants tasted such soup. And fancy, made from stones!

---

They ate and drank and ate and drank. And after that they danced. They danced and sang far into the night.

---

At last they were tired. Then the three soldiers asked, “Is there not a loft where we could sleep?”  
“Let three such wise and splendid gentlemen sleep in a loft? Indeed! They must have the best beds in the village.”

---

So the first soldier slept in the priest’s house.  
The second soldier slept in the baker’s house.
And the third soldier slept in the mayor’s house.

---

In the morning, the whole village gathered in the square to give them a send-off. “Many thanks for what you have taught us,” the peasants said to the soldiers. “We shall never go hungry, now that we know how to make soup from stones.”

---

“Oh, it’s all in knowing how,” said the soldiers, and off they went down the road.
 Source 
 
- "Stone Soup" by Marcia Brown, Atheneum Books, (c) 1975 by Marcia Brown 

The Importance of Trees

This is a gentle, touching and inspiring movie called "The Man Who Planted Trees", and I encourage you to fix a cup of herbal tea (or a glass of wine), and make the time to and sit back and enjoy watching it. The video is beautifully drawn in what appears to be hand drawn pastel charcoals; it is narrated by Christopher Plummer. Written by Jean Giono, this popular story of inspiration and hope was originally published in 1954 in Vogue as "The Man Who Planted Hope and Grew Happiness."

The Man Who Planted Trees tells the story of Elzeard Bouffier, a man who, after his son and wife die, spends his life reforesting miles of barren land in southern France. He patiently plants and nurtures a forest of thousands of trees, single-handedly transforming his arid surroundings into a thriving oasis. Undeterred by two World Wars, and without any thought of personal reward, the shepherd tirelessly sows his seeds and acorns with the greatest care. As if by magic, a landscape that seemed condemned grows green again. A film of great beauty and hope, this story is a remarkable parable for all ages and an inspiring testament to the power of one person.

There's an interesting story about the importance of trees in our world, "Why Trees Matter" published in the New York Times.

Excerpt:

 

"What we do know... suggests that what trees do is essential though often not obvious. Decades ago, Katsuhiko Matsunaga, a marine chemist at Hokkaido University in Japan, discovered that when tree leaves decompose, they leach acids into the ocean that help fertilize plankton. When plankton thrive, so does the rest of the food chain. In a campaign called Forests Are Lovers of the Sea, fishermen have replanted forests along coasts and rivers to bring back fish and oyster stocks. And they have returned.

Trees are nature’s water filters, capable of cleaning up the most toxic wastes, including explosives, solvents and organic wastes, largely through a dense community of microbes around the tree’s roots that clean water in exchange for nutrients, a process known as phytoremediation. Tree leaves also filter air pollution. A 2008 study by researchers at Columbia University found that more trees in urban neighborhoods correlate with a lower incidence of asthma.

Trees also release vast clouds of beneficial chemicals. On a large scale, some of these aerosols appear to help regulate the climate; others are anti-bacterial, anti-fungal and anti-viral. We need to learn much more about the role these chemicals play in nature. One of these substances, taxane, from the Pacific yew tree, has become a powerful treatment for breast and other cancers. Aspirin’s active ingredient comes from willows.

Trees are greatly underutilized as an eco-technology. “Working trees” could absorb some of the excess phosphorus and nitrogen that run off farm fields and help heal the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. In Africa, millions of acres of parched land have been reclaimed through strategic tree growth.

Trees are also the planet’s heat shield. They keep the concrete and asphalt of cities and suburbs 10 or more degrees cooler and protect our skin from the sun’s harsh UV rays. The Texas Department of Forestry has estimated that the die-off of shade trees will cost Texans hundreds of millions of dollars more for air-conditioning. Trees, of course, sequester carbon, a greenhouse gas that makes the planet warmer. A study by the Carnegie Institution for Science also found that water vapor from forests lowers ambient temperatures."

I'm planting trees this year, are you?

The 99 Percent Declaration

I've been watching the growing "Occupy" movement for several weeks with some curiousity, even though there seemed to be no particular agenda. Now a Working Group that includes pro bono lawyers and university students arrested in NYC for their peaceful demonstrations, have drafted The 99% Declaration. 

I will be following this closely because among other things, it addresses the greed prevalent in corporations that affect the laws of this country via political contributions and influence, which means they affect me. (Think BigAg, BigPharma, etc.)

The Working Group wants to draws up a formal petition of grievances voted by to-be-elected representatives of all congressional districts. The US Constitution provides for a petition of a list of grievances to present to the government, but apparently by Constitutional Law only a duly elected body can legitimize a list of demands from the People. Their proposal is only a starting proposal and sample list of just demands on the government, plus how they hope to accomplish it via elected representatives.

Their posted sample proposal includes a fair tax across the board (and cutting ALL tax loopholes), eliminating the contributions (open or hidden) that buy politicians, and a host of other proposals that sound sensible to me, from the War Machine to Health Care and Jobs. 

I encourage you to read the whole declaration... it's short and to the point. Who knows, it may even gain wide-spread support!